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Daily Archives: May 9, 2010

First baseman Joe Burke, wearing a Patriots' pink jersey to support Breast Cancer Awareness Day, plays in front of a runner. (Courtesy of the Patriots)

Trailing by seven runs in the bottom of the eighth inning Sunday afternoon, the Somerset Patriots rallied for 12 runs in their final two at-bats and rode a walk-off grand slam by Matt Hagen to a stunning 14-10 comeback victory against the Southern Maryland Blue Crabs in a Mother’s Day matinee in front of 4,044 at TD Bank Ballpark.

“Sometimes you just play silly games,” said Hagen, who took a shaving cream pie to the face in the postgame clubhouse from winning pitcher Casey Cahill. “This one went from sloppy to fun in the last two innings.”

The only time the Patriots have overcome a larger deficit to win was June 20, 2004, though that day they had six innings to make up for falling behind 9-1 in the fourth against the Camden Riversharks.

“This was a beauty,” manager Sparky Lyle said, “especially because we couldn’t do anything right for the first six innings. Just awesome.”